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As recruiters and recruiting coordinators begin to see and feel the multiple advantages of artificial intelligence and machine learning, the worlds of technology and hiring have never been closer than they are today. With so much development in both industries having occurred in 2018, it’s easy to say that we’ve come a long way. In truth, the journey is only beginning.

At My Ally, we consider ourselves fortunate to be at the confluence of these distinct yet overlapping worlds. One driven by science, data and logic; the other powered by emotion, social intelligence and humanity. A blend of science and art in the truest sense. The empathy that comes with being able to see the achievements of each field from the perspective of the other is humbling.

We spent all of 2018 leveraging these new learnings to further refine our AI-powered recruiting solutions. As a result, our unique position allows us to be part of twice the learning from both sides: some driven by logic and others by emotion. And deliver a unique perspective that tempers the opportunities and hopes of one industry with the risks and concerns of the other, and vice versa.

With one eye on the future, we’re delighted to share our vision for the next year in AI and recruiting. Check out our pick of 14 trends that we expect to feature heavily across hiring strategies in 2019 and beyond.

Candidates will continue to be a priority. In 2018, a considerable proportion of employers woke up to the fact that candidates actually give a damn or two about how they’re treated during the hiring process. Some came to this realization willingly while others were shocked into it, but regardless of how it happened companies finally understand that the little things make a world of difference to recruiting success. A candidate experience report by iCIMS revealed that 95% of job-seekers believe that the way they’re treated during hiring is how they’ll be treated if they become employees of the company. That means hiring strategy flaws like weak communication, not being forthright, ghosting and delayed responses are likely to ward off top talent. You know the cream of the crop you want working for you and not your competitor? This is them.

Companies will deliver a personalized candidate experience. It’s a job-seeker’s world right now. That means the very best get what they want, and what they want is to feel valued. One of the most effective ways employers can do that is by delivering genuinely personalized candidate experiences. If candidates are being flexible with their schedules and willing to go through multiple rounds of interviews, it’s only fair that employers meet them halfway. One of the biggest downfalls of even the best-laid hiring strategies is the refusal to change course or bend the rules a bit. Sometimes, a candidate comes along who’s more comfortable handling everything over text message instead of via email. Unless there’s a security concern, look at the advantages instead of demanding that everyone stick to the plan.

Late adopters of AI may not catch up with the pack. If you’re driving a Ferrari, you can usually afford to give your opponents a head start and still overtake them. Not if they’re driving Porsches, though. And yet that’s exactly what may happen to companies that still refuse to adopt AI for recruiting, which has been proven to facilitate time savings and uninterrupted workflows by automating high-volume tasks. According to global consulting titans McKinsey, late adopters of AI “might find themselves playing catch-up indefinitely”. The good news is that there’s still time; McKinsey has identified 2030 as the year by which 70% of companies will have deployed some form of AI. But this is no bandwagon, and the sooner you get on board, the further ahead you’ll be when everyone else realizes what they’ve been missing.

Recruiters are finally starting to trust AI. The issues most recruiting professionals have with AI technology doesn’t stem from fear but from mistrust. Like a new teammate, you don’t actually know what the experience will be until you try it. The only difference is we’ve been conditioned to accept new people. It’s taken time, but it feels like recruiters are finally catching on to the fact that AI is here to make their jobs easier. After all, the time you gain from solutions like ours is just one way to give your productivity and career growth a significant boost. And it helps that a fairly strong adoption rate of AI technology hasn’t resulted in thousands of recruiting coordinators finding themselves out of work, as many of them predicted.

This is a reflection of the confidence recruiting professionals have in themselves and their abilities, but it is also further evidence that the human touch cannot be replicated.

In fact, AI is actually far from being perceived as the enemy, and this mindset gets chipped away the more recruiters use it. That same survey indicates that the majority of recruiters have enjoyed its benefits, ranging from more time to higher-quality insights.

So it should be reassuring rather than concerning that AI will power everything from chatbots to recruiting tools to personal assistants in 2019.